


That's What Friends Are For

by DovahDoes



Series: A Little Amenadan AU [1]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Amenadiel discovers that Dan is Not So Bad Really, As in Dan thinks there's a roofie situation happening when it's not quite so mundane or simple, Dan has a crush and is Doing His Best to ignore it, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, It's a (platonic) sleepover basically, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Who knows.... - Freeform, Will Dan ever get enough sleep in any of my fics?, i guess?, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 14:46:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16914858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DovahDoes/pseuds/DovahDoes
Summary: His arm nearly pulls out of its socket and he very narrowly avoids losing his footing when Amenadiel stops ambling along behind him.  It definitely puts into perspective that the guy really would not be going anywhere with him if he didn’t want to, with how crazy strong he apparently is.Forced to turn back around and see what the holdup is, the still-glassy eyes that meet his are strangely intent, their dark colour almost menacing.“No,” Amenadiel insists, voice brooking no arguments.  “No hos’itals.  I’ll be fine— juss drop me off ‘t my ‘par’ment.”*  *  *Dan's at a local dive bar, avoiding pretty much everyone he knows so he can have a nice, mid-week, Self-Pity Plus Beer session when he finds himself intervening in some gross 'putting things in someone else's drink' nonsense.  Ironically, it's Lucifer's brother he's helped potentially rescue, and, well.... why not spend the evening babysitting a distant acquaintance, right?





	That's What Friends Are For

**Author's Note:**

> (80s songs for titles foreverrr~.)
> 
> Nobody asked for a prequel in my [Amenadan AU series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/752394), but here one is! ;p This takes place, I think.... early in S2? Ask me when I'm not fresh off working holiday hours at my 2nd job while dealing with a migraine. haha.
> 
> Anyway, what I _do_ know is that it takes place before [Wake Me Up (Before You Go Go)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11159949), seeing as it's before our boys even get together.

  

There’s a dive bar not too far from his apartment that Dan likes to go to, sometimes, when it’s been a long or stressful week.   And a crazy long week it has been— between the usual madness that is life working in law enforcement, his recently permanently killed relationship with his estranged wife, and the fact that he’s been knocked back down to doing all the garbage assignments that a greenhorn would have to thanks to his always counter-intuitive life choices.  (He would hit up one of the popular, cop-friendly bars, except that the cops aren’t all super friendly to _him_ right now.)

 

The icing on top of the mess of his life, recently, is that the living definition of an antagonist, Lucifer Morningstar, lurks around every corner, no doubt just waiting to move in on Chloe the moment she takes a second to actually realize that he’s completely head over heels for her.

 

 _Ugh_.  And really, he knows he has pretty much no right to do anything about the potential (read: inevitable) unsavoury outcome, anymore.  _Still_ , though…

 

Anyway, luckily, this is about as far away, atmospherically, as it gets from Lux, what with the lived-in bar stools, the dark booths, and the generally less than friendly fellow patrons who can be counted on to generally leave one the hell alone.

 

In fact, ironically, if he’s not mistaken, he’d actually spotted Lucifer’s enigmatic brother way down at the opposite end of the bar, nursing a half-empty pint of beer that looks like it contains about 3 times the amount of booze as Dan’s own less impressive bottle of Heineken.

 

Based on his limited knowledge of that whole weird family, the other man has a strained relationship with his brash, glitzy ass of a sibling, so it’s no surprise that he, too, isn’t sitting at Lux’s bar to wile away his Tuesday evening.

 

Really, though, Dan muses to himself, taking a pull from the dregs of his drink, there’s no reason Amenadiel shouldn’t be able to hit the floor of any club or upscale bar and immediately pull any person he’d like to have as company with no real effort.  Even if he weren’t attracted to males, he’d be hard-pressed to miss just how attractive the statuesque man is, what with his long legs, toned torso, and handsome face.

 

Meanwhile, every time Dan has tried setting foot into a club with any intent of perhaps seeking out a partner, it’s a matter of time before he awkwardly sees himself out and either heads home or—well, to this very dive bar to self-pityingly lick his wounds.

 

Placing his bottle on the bartop, he glances down at his phone as he taps its power button, noting that it’s still not all too late, and that he could probably afford to have another drink before maybe checking in and watching the last of the mid-week improv gathering at the community theatre a block or so away.

 

Tucking his phone back into his coat pocket, he looks back up in search of the bartender, but instead finds his eyes unerringly drawn to a rather unremarkable looking guy sitting at the very corner of the bar, where the countertop curves around.  The man, with a dime-a-dozen beanie pulled down over shaggy, dark hair, could be any number of stereotypical, beach-frequenting Californian twenty-somethings he encounters on a day-to-day basis, except that his eyes are laser-focused on Amenadiel, whose pint glass is now empty, but has been replaced with another new one that is already a quarter finished.

 

As if catching the edges of Dan’s increasing worry, Amenadiel’s nose wrinkles for a moment as he glances down into the tall glass of amber liquid.  The series of events and observations trip several different alarms in his head, and he abandons his quest to flag down the bartender to order another bottle of beer, and instead squeezes by the older man sitting on the stool to the right, whose widely sprawled leg makes it a chore for Dan to scoot around him.  A willowy, middle-aged woman with a mass of thick braids cascading down her back also impedes his progress as he makes his way toward the opposite end of the bar.

 

He utters a tight “Excuse me,” as he is forced to completely deviate from the beeline he’d been making, and doesn’t even notice the appreciative once-over her alcohol-glazed eyes make down his body.

 

 _Finally_ , the LAPD detective reaches Amenadiel’s side, turning sideways to lean one arm on the bar and hopefully catch a better look at the suspicious young man from earlier while simultaneously gauging how Lucifer’s older brother is doing.

 

At the sensation of a body slotting itself in so close to his own, Amenadiel turns to see who has made themselves so familiar with him.  As he does so, Dan catches sight of the way the other man is slow to react, and how even his blinking seems sluggish.  Even in the low light of the bar, it’s evident that the dark eyes are glassy and not quite fully aware;  he’s sure that if he brought his phone back out and made use of the flashlight function, he’d find that Amenadiel’s pupils are heavily dilated.

 

Mental alarm bells clamoring and his vindictive, protective side flaring up, he leans back and prepares to step out from his blocked-in position in order to peer around for the (probably purposefully nondescript man who seems to have vacated his seat at some point during Dan’s arduous journey to his current location.  He’s not even sure that the person he’d seen is involved, but his intuition just will not let go of its dogged insistence that he definitely _is_.

 

Unfortunately, Dan only gets as far as twisting his body to the side and budging the empty barstool behind him back with his hip before the subject of his concern finally fully registers not only the detective’s presence, but his identity.

 

Before he has a chance to offer up a protest, he is crushed in an incredibly tight embrace that actually manages to realign the funky disk in his back with a muted pop.  Surprise hugs are not his forte, and this one in particular introduces a new and deep empathy for what life as a stress ball very likely feels like.

 

“Detective Es’inoza!” Amenadiel says, jubilantly, somewhere above his right ear.  “What are you doing here?”

 

Finally gasping in fresh air once the very warm arms enfolding him loosen, Dan wheezes out a breath before awkwardly patting the taller male’s back and moving to separate them.

 

“ _Wow_ — uh, yeah.  Hi, Amenadiel.  I’m just—” leaning around his suddenly affectionate acquaintance’s body to make a last-ditch effort to find the likely culprit in the dimly lit bar, he continues speaking absently.  “— having a drink or two before heading home.  Don’t have a lot of space for booze in the fridge at home.”

 

Eventually catching on to his captive’s shifting attention, Amenadiel also drops his arms before turning and looking over his own shoulder, trying to see what has captured Daniel’s interest so.

 

“D’you have ‘noth’r friend comin’ here?”

 

 _Damn_.

 

The guy’d up and disappeared while Amenadiel had surprise-bear-hugged him.  With a huff, the detective straightens up again so that the apparently drugged male takes up the majority of his line of sight.

 

What he sees in not particularly reassuring: Amenadiel is leaning a whole lot of his weight on the counter, as though his balance is off, and his eyes are only half-open at this point.  He _really_ hopes the guy doesn’t fall, because even though Dan’s in reasonably good shape, Lucifer’s brother seems to be as well, and that would be a whole hell of a lot of dead weight to deal with on his own.  Registering that he’d been asked a question, the distracted detective mentally shakes himself.

 

“What?  Oh, no— didn’t you hear what I said just now?  Ah. Right— short term memory is probably going.  Which,” he says grasping firmly at a henley-covered bicep and using it to tow the other man steadily towards the exit, “we will _also_ be doing.  Going, I mean.”

 

“Going where?”  Amenadiel asks sedately, far laxer than Dan has ever known him to be from their very limited amount of previous interaction.  He even plods after along behind him easily enough, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that a not-particularly-close acquaintance is spiriting him away from his seat at the bar.

 

Distracted by trying to inconspicuously make his way through a gaggle of inebriated people near the bar’s entrance, Dan hardly pays him any mind and eventually answers absently, craning his head about to find the simplest path to the exit.

 

“Ah, to the ER, so they can get some bloodwork and see what you were dosed wi— _whoah!_ ”

 

His arm nearly pulls out of its socket and he very narrowly avoids losing his footing when Amenadiel stops ambling along behind him.  It definitely puts into perspective that the guy _really_ would not be going anywhere with him if he didn’t want to, with how crazy strong he apparently is.

 

Forced to turn back around and see what the holdup is, the still-glassy eyes that meet his are strangely intent, their dark colour almost menacing.

 

“ _No_ ,” Amenadiel insists, voice brooking no arguments.  “No hos’itals.  I’ll be fine— juss drop me off ‘t my ‘par’ment.”

 

Looking at the way the man behind him has to squint his eyes every few seconds and occasionally lists slightly to the side, the LAPD detective makes an executive decision that will hopefully help quiet the inborn protective sense in the pit of his stomach.

 

“Fine— no hospital.  _But_ we’re going back to _my_ apartment, so I can keep an eye on you while you burn off whatever this is.  Come on.”

 

Amenadiel’s expression seems far more agreeable than it did a few seconds ago, and he huffs out a sound that seems to indicate a deal has been made.  Seeing that they’ve caught the eye of a curious fellow patron or two, even as seedy as the bar is, Dan turns and hustles out the bar, maintaining his grip on the other man’s arm the whole while.

 

The fresh air doesn’t do anything to rejuvenate his charge, unfortunately, which only has Dan’s frown deepening ever so slightly.   Luckily, his car is just over a block down, since he’d parked in front of the small theatre whose improv classes he occasionally attends.

 

The short journey is quiet, and Dan slows his pace to walk side-by-side with his taller companion, feeling a bit self-conscious about the fact that he’s basically arm-in-arm with a guy that barely knows him from Adam.

 

Mostly, that’s due to the fact that a gaggle of women walking by on the opposite side of the street—likely on the way to the more reputable pub up the road— issues a series of jocular cat-calls and whistles in their direction.  It’s really more mortifying than it is annoying, as it really just hammers home the fact that he’s very recently been made not only officially single, but is due to be _properly_ , legally divorced from the almost-ex wife he sometimes still pines after.  Chances are that Dan Espinoza won’t be seeing any action for a long time, whatever those women thought they’d seen.

 

Shaking himself out of his morose, self-pitying thoughts, Dan edges around the bumper of an oversized SUV before approaching the front passenger side of his unremarkable sedan.  Having pressed the ‘unlock’ button on his key fob when the car had first been in his sightline, the unlocked door is easy enough to pull open, but maneuvering the heavy and awkwardly uncoordinated limbs of his surprise houseguest proves to be tiring.

 

The other man looks a bit bewildered by the way his own body seems not to be cooperating at all, and ends up muttering a rather earnest ‘thank you’ after his savior even buckles his seatbelt securely in place.

 

With a whooshing exhalation, the off-duty detective takes a moment to lean against the hood of his vehicle, doing his damnedest not to examine exactly _what_ the hell his life has become over the last year or so.  At this point, he’s about to babysit the brother of one of the _most_ suspicious characters he’s ever met, a character who has almost _definitely_ absolutely trounced him in their competition to win the favour of his soon-to-be ex-wife.

 

Again— what the _hell_?

 

The sound of a sudden swell of noise from the direction of the nearby theatre’s front doors jars him out of his quasi-maudlin reverie and prompts him to finally enter his vehicle.  Turning the key in the ignition, he glances to his side and notes that Amenadiel’s eyes are very nearly closed and that he’s leaning comfortably against the door and window to his side as much as his seatbelt will allow.

 

As they head out into the night, Dan can only hope that he won’t end up with a fully unconscious 6-foot-plus guy in his car, once he gets to his apartment building.  Otherwise, Amenadiel just might have to enjoy the car seat as his overnight accommodations.  Or, worse— he might have to actually call someone for help with the weird situation he’s put himself in.

 

*

 

When they finally _do_ get to his apartment 15 minutes or so later, Amenadiel is not unconscious, thankfully.  However, he _does_ manage to garner a few odd looks from the rare fellow resident of the building they encounter because of the way he so jovially greets _every one of them,_ all while half wrapped around Dan.  The younger man smiles weakly, more than a bit uncomfortable with the amount of attention the spectacle of a generally quiet police officer and his apparently _very_ drunk ‘friend’ are attracting on the short trip up to his apartment.

 

Finally, _mercifully_ , they reach his door, and Amenadiel’s eyebrows go up as he watches the detective’s door swing open and bang loudly as it hits the wall— all thanks to the fact that Dan really only has use of one of his arms, supporting a much of the larger man’s weight as he is.

 

“Y’r couch.” The older male says, succinctly, sounding both determined and strangely awed.  “Gonna’ sit on y’r couch: ‘s _nice_.”

 

What it _is_ is a sectional that’d been bought at a discount from a ‘dinged n dented’ furniture place right after he’d first moved out of Chloe’s place, but if Lucifer’s older brother wants to spend his night there, who is he to argue?  So long as the guy doesn’t try to use the defective portion at the end that’s supposed to recline, he couldn’t care less.   _Plus_ his back is kind of starting starting to kill him— the guy is clearly in good shape, and Dan knows muscle is super heavy, but _damn_ Amenadiel _really_ weighs more than he looks— _Jesus_.

 

“Okay,” he huffs out, shuffling them both towards the indicated piece of furniture.  “Couch it is, man.  C’mon, let’s get you settled in.”

 

And somehow he does just that, ending up out of breath, sitting right next to Amenadiel, whose arm is still around his shoulder.  It doesn’t hurt anyone to take a quick moment and let his neck and upper back go lax as he exhales, indulging in a rare moment of person-to-person contact that he’s ashamed to admit he’s a bit starved for.

 

Except that he then remembers the other person is in an altered state of mind, and he sits straight up again, leaving Amenadiel to crack his eyes open and make an inquisitive sound at his couchmate’s rapid movement.

 

Dan clears his throat and smoothly stands up, feeling embarrassed for his moment of weakness, restlessly brushing down his leather jacket as he heads to the small kitchenette off to the side of the living room.

 

“Just, uh, feel free to get comfortable on the couch.  You can lie down or whatever if you want— there’s pillows at the one end of the couch.  I’ll just grab you some water and I guess some crackers, to help burn through that stuff in your system.”

 

Quickly grabbing a generic brand of bottled water from his mostly bare fridge, he also scrounges up a possibly-stale set of individually packaged saltines from the last time he’d grabbed soup for lunch.

 

Amenadiel is sprawled out comfortably on his side when he carefully hands the items over to him.  Remarkably, the older man manages to straighten up minutely in order to down the entire bottle of water in what looks like three big gulps.  The crackle of the vacuumed-flat plastic container rapidly refilling with air is a bit jarring, and the loud sound seems almost deafening in the relative quiet of the apartment.  (It’s a wonder he and his brother don’t compete in drinking contests, with as much as he’s also seen Lucifer drink at Lux.)

 

Grabbing the empty bottle as the hand holding it lowers minutely, Dan places it behind him on the third-hand coffee table in the middle of the living room, before heading toward his bedroom down a short hallway.

 

He figures the other man should be alright for a few minutes or so, but still rushes through an abridged version of his nighttime routine— opting for a quick change of clothes, and then brushing his teeth with the water turned off most of the time and an open ear toward the open bathroom door.

 

Dan makes it two steps down the hallway before doubling back for a moment to grab his good, spare throw from his bedroom, figuring his guest’s body temperature might fluctuate at some point during the night while working through whatever odd substance is running through his veins.

 

Tossing the oversized, green plaid blanket over one shoulder, he stifles a yawn and briefly pops into the kitchenette to grab a bottle of unrefrigerated water from the open case he’d left on the corner of the small countertop.

 

When he rounds the corner of the longest part of the sectional, he sees that Amenadiel has managed to polish off the saltines he’d left behind— somehow managing not to leave any crumbs on the soft, tawny suede.

 

Chortling a little at the way the man has rolled onto his stomach and now hugs the couch’s second pillow to his chest, Dan steps forward and shakes out the super-soft throw before efficiently laying it atop his lightly snoring overnight guest.

 

As he makes his way toward the adjacent corner of the sectional that functions as an immobile recliner, he finally collapses tiredly and swings his feet up to the permanently raised footrest.  Sighing briefly, he takes out his phone and sets an alarm for some 7 hours from the current, somewhat late hour while using his other hand to fumble around blindly between the chair and the wall for the spare charge cord he keeps there.

 

Rubbing his eyes, Dan glances over to the deeply sleeping man on the other section of the couch and then connects the small cable to his cell phone.

 

Half-interestedly flicking through his Netflix account, he chooses to burn time by watching an old kung fu movie that seems fairly interesting.  He really, _really_ wants to stay up for a bit longer until the local news starts, since he knows that will help him stay awake even longer into the vigil he intends to keep over his houseguest.

 

Yawning, he sits up a little straighter while the opening credits and a subtitled voice-over play, and passes bleary eyes over Amenadiel’s figure to make sure that nothing has changed.

 

His last thought, several hours later, is that he is going to have an incredibly long day at work.

 

*

 

Pre-dawn arrives to a quiet, peaceful living room in Detective Dan Espinoza’s apartment.  As the very first rays of light begin to tint the eastern sky multiple hues of indigo, cerulean, and soft pink, a certain angel suddenly awakens.

 

Clenching his fists, he pushes up onto one elbow and peers confusedly around at the utterly unfamiliar space he finds himself in.  Were he in better health, he would utilize his ability to manipulate time to investigate more stealthily, but he instead furrows his brows and silently sits up in place, wincing when a creaking sound rises from somewhere below the soft cushions underneath him.

 

In response, a figure across the room shifts restlessly where it’s curled up in a half-upright recliner.  The second he focuses his gaze, his exceptional eyesight identifies the person, in spite of the relatively low lighting being let through the blackout blinds in front of the small window nearby.

 

As he fully sits up— more carefully, now that he knows the furniture creaks and groans— his mind begins filtering through the slowly-returning memories of the night before.  A dense, super plush blanket slides down and pools on the still-indented cushions of the couch that had cradled his sleeping body not so long ago.

 

With a jolt, however, the ‘situation’ with his newly-appeared mother, trapped in a mortal body, and possibly planning his and Lucifer’s demise, saps any remaining vestiges of the soft, relaxed thoughts that had been swirling through his mind.  Rolling his shoulders, his damaged wings reappear behind him as he prepares to jet off to a safe location, away from unidentified, opportunistic enemies at bars and strangely benevolent acquaintances willing to lose sleep, food, and personal time to help what they believe to be their fellow man.

 

Before he closes his eyes in preparation to concentrate on expending his celestial energy, though, he can’t help but notice that Detective Espinoza— Dan, he’d called him last night— is partially curled up in a relatively light t-shirt and lounge pants in the cool air of the living room.

 

Huffing a sigh, Amenadiel bends to retrieve the plaid, oversized throw from the couch and then shakes it out briefly, before turning back around.

 

*

 

It’s only 2 hours later when Dan awakes, feeling muzzy-headed and, as he’d predicted, completely exhausted.  Squinting blearily, he pulls his blanket up higher and hits the snooze option on his phone, whose alarm tone had just roused him from his death-like sleep.

 

He’s more than halfway unconscious, again when something different about his environment rouses him.  It’s the blanket, he realizes.

 

He’d gone to sleep without one (foolishly), so the only person that could have put it on him is the only other person in his apartment.

 

“Amenadiel?” he croaks, opening his eyes and peering to his right at the other part of his living room furniture.

 

The lack of response to his call makes sense, considering that his sectional is void of any other living beings.  And the absence of any other noises indicates that he likely won’t find the enigmatic man anywhere else in his dwelling.

 

Rubbing the sleep out of his eye with one hand and fumbling with his phone with the other, he eventually manages to set a new alarm to go off in half an hour instead of ten minutes, as it had automatically defaulted to, initially.

 

Maybe once he wakes up again, he’ll be able to better ruminate on exactly how a grown man had managed to quietly open his creaky, dead-bolted door that tends to stick more often than not.  And about how the only trace of his having been here is an unfamiliar— but not unpleasant— musky scent that he might be imagining remains in the occasional fold of the green blanket covering him nearly from head to toe.

 

One thing he’s already figured out for sure is that the next time either of them go back to that mercifully Lucifer-free dive bar, Amenadiel _definitely_ owes him a goddamn drink.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The next time Amenadiel gets Dan a drink, we all know what happens. ;P hahaha. 
> 
> Whew! This fic fought me _a lot_ , but insisted it be written, so I'm glad to get it posted even if I'm not glad with the whole thing, overall. Now that this is up, though, I can actually focus on other fics that take place later in this AU. c:  
> *
> 
> Come check out [my writing blog](https://dovahdoeswrite.tumblr.com/), where I post early fic snippets and keep you updated on what i'm working on in what fandoms!
> 
>    
> Kudos and comments are love: feel free to leave me some, kind readers~. (ღˇ◡ˇ)~♥


End file.
